GOING TO ORANGEDALE

Historic train station just one reason to visit community

Historic train station just one reason to visit community.

In July of last year my cousin Michael MacLean, who grew up in Sydney Mines and now lives in Ottawa, decided to make a quick visit to our home in North Sydney.

Being very familiar with the regular tourist attractions like the Fortress of Louisbourg, the Bell Museum in Baddeck, and the Highland Village in Iona, he expressed an interest in seeing something new and preferably off the beaten track.

And so, in the company of my sister Catherine, we ended up in the small village of Orangedale, which is located approximately four miles off the Trans-Canada Highway, in the centre of our island.

How do you get there? If you leave the village of Whycocomagh on the Trans-Canada Highway and head in the direction of the Canso Causeway, you will only go about four miles before you see a sign for

the Orangedale Road. Turning off the Trans-Canada at Exit 4 takes you on a short drive (four miles) to one of Cape Breton’s best kept little secrets.

The lakeside community of Orangedale, named after

a Protestant fraternal order called the Orangemen, has one of the oldest surviving general stores on the island. G.H. Smith & Sons offer everything from food to furniture to automobile

tires. Whenever we stop there on our motorcycles, the friendly staff fill us in on the local news and we always enjoy a cold pop or a delicious ice cream.

This village also has a fascinating ‘living’ museum which contains an exhibit that is the only one of its kind in Atlantic Canada.

The Orangedale Station is the only remaining example of the 12 original intercolonial railway stations built in Cape Breton in the 1880s and early 1890s. In addition to providing shelter and services to the traveling public, the station was a busy shipping point for lumber, potatoes, Christmas trees, and fish and oysters from the Bras D’Or Lakes. Incoming freight included farm animals, flour and kerosene, automobiles and farm equipment, as well as all kinds of merchandise for the local merchants.

This station served a very large rural area in central Cape Breton. In the early years people came from miles around in their horse-drawn wagons or sleighs, or on foot, to catch the train to the outside world. As a child I can vividly remember taking the train from North Sydney to Orangedale, in the company of my mother and younger brother John. From there we would hitch a ride to the family farm in Gillisdale (Upper Margaree) with the truck that delivered the Royal Mail.

Built in 1886 by local tradesmen, the Orangedale Station was built in the “Railway Queen Anne” style, with squared timbers stacked one upon the other. When passenger rail service in Cape Breton came to an end in January 1990, it seemed likely that the Orangedale Station would quickly be demolished. However, a group of concerned locals formed the ‘Orangedale Station Association’ and started on the long difficult process of trying to preserve this fascinating piece of their heritage.

They were successful and the Orangedale Station is now a museum. Like other railway museums the first floor contains the ticket office, waiting room with wood burning stove and a display room. The second floor, however, is unique. This is the only intercolonial railway station left in the Maritime provinces where you will find the original station agent’s living quarters, furnished as the family home it once was in the early 1900s.

As if all that were not enough, outside the station are six pieces of original rolling stock, a bright red caboose, a boxcar, a small locomotive, a Terra Transport passenger car (from Newfoundland), a “speeder” (small inspection car) and a Russell snowplough.

This latter item, which was attached to the front of a steam engine, was the size of a boxcar with a primitive control room for two ‘operators’ whose primary function was to operate the two ‘wing’ plows. Fascinating.

The Orangedale Railway Museum, with a gift shop and picnic

area, is open daily from June 27 to September 3 this year.

SUBMITTED PHOTO/RANNIE GILLIS Eleanor (Blue) Morrison, centre, is shown with Michael MacLean and Catherine Gillis. The 43-ton Russell snow plow in the background was donated to the museum by Canadian National Railways.

SUBMITTED PHOTOS/RANNIE GILLIS Built in 1886, the Orangedale Station at one time saw six passenger and 20 freight trains each day.

This is the station agent’s family parlour (living room) on the second floor of the museum.

Michael MacLean is shown at the station agent’s desk from where he would send and receive telegrams, sell tickets to passengers and relay train orders to conductors and engineers.